In his introduction to the bill, he inveighed images of the Founding Fathers, who no doubt would have heartily approved of his efforts: “The Founders [designed] a Constitution of enumerated powers, giving the federal government broad authority over only those matters that must have a single national response, while sharply restricting its authority to intrude on those spheres of activity better left to the states and the people.” By using his interpretation, rather any reference directly to what the Constitution actually says, Ryan then goes on to assure his party that unconstitutional abrogation into areas expressly forbidden by the Constitution will not be endangered in any way. Sounding like President Franklin Roosevelt in presenting his New Deal, Ryan wrote:

The federal government can help provide a strong safety net for Americans who, through no fault of their own, have fallen on hard times…

Over the past century, the American people have sought to furnish a strong and stable base of health and retirement security for working families.… Such protection provides insurance against the vagaries of life.

And then, to guarantee that his budget had no intention whatever of threatening the welfare state, he quoted President Lyndon Johnson, who, when he signed Medicare into law, said: “No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine…. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles and their aunts.” Those “deep moral obligations” now belong irrevocably and eternally to the federal government. Added Ryan: “To fulfill Johnson’s pledge in the 21st century, America’s generations-old health and retirement security programs must be saved and strengthened.”